Great Record At Home, Just Ask Petrovicky

November 12, 1992|By ALAN GREENBERG; Courant Sports Columnist

When you're lonesome and a long way from home, an empty apartment is no place to be. For a friendless young bachelor plunged into a foreign culture and language, it means too much fast food and time to brood. That's a no-no. The Whalers want their future stars nurtured, not numb.

How do you cushion the culture shock when you draft an 18-year-old Slovak and dump him in downtown Hartford? Find him a nice family with which to live.

The Whalers may not be making too many winning moves on the ice these days, but they've made several off it. Maybe Whalers director of operations Tom Rowe isn't in the running for NHL executive of the year, but he's proving to be one heckuva home-finder. The man's got the right kind of friends.

Just ask Patrick Poulin and Robert Petrovicky, the Whalers' past two No. 1 draft choices. Poulin, 19, a French Canadian beginning his second season with the organization, lives with Paul and Maureen Chapdelaine in Simsbury.

Rookie Petrovicky, 19, the Whalers' most recent No. 1, is making the transition from Czechoslovakia to southern New England with the help of Jack and Diana Coyle, also of Simsbury. And let's not forget the Coyles' kids, Griffin, 11, and Matthew, 9. If not for them, who would have taught Petrovicky Nintendo?

A lot of pro teams talk about the importance of being a family, but that's what a lot of it is -- talk. Some sports "families" unravel with the first losing season. Real families, bound by love, not winning streaks, don't fold so easily.

The NHL always has been bicultural, but how many young French Canadians haven't panned out, not because they couldn't play, but because their clubs made little effort to ease the young men's transition into the NHL's predominantly English-speaking culture? Now that the NHL talent pool truly has gone global, general managers such as the Whalers' Brian Burke are even more conscious of the need to make young foreigners feel at home. It's not only the decent, humane thing to do, it's good business for the hockey club. Which is why the Whalers throw in $500 a month for room and

board, plus a pair of season tickets.

Rowe, who initially became friends with the Coyles because their kids played youth hockey together, approached them last spring about "adopting" the just-drafted Petrovicky.

"I thought we could learn as much from him as he would from us," said Diana Coyle, 36, a manager in the engineering department at Southern New England Telephone. "To kids, being a pro athlete is all glory. I thought it would be nice for them to see that there was more to it than that. I thought it would help them to see what rewards hard work can bring."

For Petrovicky, it means a room of his own in the Coyle's four-bedroom colonial. It means having a surrogate father with whom to talk when he comes home after another tough loss. A surrogate father to take him around and show him how to open a checking account and credit cards and how to deal with car salesmen and other infernal American things. It means missing his two brothers in Czechoslovakia, but having two new "brothers" to immerse him in movies and video games and the rest of American pop culture.

Perhaps nicest of all, it means having a surrogate mom, who baked an enormous birthday cake to celebrate the Oct. 26 birthday Petrovicky shares with Matthew. Diana drew a hockey rink with the frosting on Robert's side of the cake, and there she planted 19 candles. "It was beautiful," said Petrovicky, clearly touched.

Petrovicky seems pretty nice himself. Rowe checked him out with Whalers supersleuths Ken Schinkel and Bruce Haralson, and they told him Petrovicky was a model kid.

How considerate is Petrovicky? Although fellow countryman and Whalers executive board member Ivan Lendl was a hero to him, and although he would love to know the tennis star better, when Lendl visited the Whalers dressing room recently, Petrovicky declined to speak to him in their native tongue for fear his Whalers teammates would be offended. Petrovicky loves tennis, so much so that he sprained his ankle playing it five days before training camp opened. His voice is laden with guilt as he recounts the incident.

The only home they sent him to was in Simsbury. In the driveway is the Jeep Petrovicky drives to practice -- not just Whalers practice. He also has been known to show up at Griffin's and Matthew's hockey practices to cheer them on.

"I was a kid, too," Petrovicky said. "I want to see how they're practicing."

When the season's right, Petrovicky is practicing his baseball. He played a couple of games with the Whalers' slow-pitch softball team this summer. What he lacks in terminology, he makes up for in enthusiasm.

"I hit a pretty nice ball," Petrovicky said. "Ran three bases, came close to the home run, and they touched me [at home plate], and I was mad."

Petrovicky, a center, isn't mad about his play as a Whalers rookie, just frustrated.

"I don't score a lot of goals [he has one goal, three assists]. I play pretty good, I guess. They tell me, `It's the best league in the world, be patient.' [His offense is] coming, it's coming."

So is brother Pavol, 20, who is arriving Sunday for a two-week

visit. Pavol works back home as a cook in -- what else? -- a Chinese restaurant. You crave Chinese when you're visiting Czechoslovakia? Go see Pavol.

For hockey, come see Robert at the Civic Center. If he reaches his goal -- stardom -- give a big assist to the Coyles. When you're new in a foreign land, the first save is usually the biggest